Chapter Text
“I’m sorry if I’m being a burden, but…”
Akechi typed slowly, the words rolling over his tongue like ghosts as he considered how best to phrase what was on his mind.
“When I called you after we spent time together last week, I wondered aloud why I found it so easy to speak to you. It may be unexpected, but I’m not exactly the type to open up to others and *certainly* not a complete stranger, so…”
He deleted everything following the word “others”, frustrated.
“Do you often bring out this kind of honesty in people, or am I just strange?”
He reread his message a number of times, feeling more and more pathetic as the seconds passed. This was unnecessary; Kurusu himself was unnecessary. His orders were to only get as close to him as Shido deemed appropriate – which was, in turn, based entirely off of Akechi’s own suspicions – but after he’d bumped into him one night at Leblanc, getting to know the leader of the Phantom Thieves seemed unavoidable.
He didn’t give much thought to the fact that his own feet had carried him halfway across the city to Yongen, nor did he dwell on his desire to pay the cafe a visit after learning that Kurusu was staying there. He’d forgotten, hadn’t he? Wasn’t it truly Sae-san’s fault for recommending it the night before?
“‘Fate’, huh…?” he murmured to himself, hitting ‘send’ against the pleas of his rational mind.
He tucked his phone beneath his pillow, curling up under the thin blanket stretched across his legs despite himself. He still had so much to do, but he could barely keep his eyes open. It had been such a long week, and all of the days were starting to blur together. When was his last job? He remembered the feeling – the rush of his target’s subjugation – but not its proximity to his current self. Maybe the Metaverse was a dream, and someday he’d wake up. Maybe Kurusu would be there, wearing a matching uniform and helping him prepare for a class trip.
His gaze latched onto the colorful spectacle of Neo Featherman R reruns, taking in all of it but retaining none of it. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought the set looked a little like photos he’d seen of Hawaii while gathering intel on the Phantom Thieves.
Hawaii…
His phone buzzed, and surprising him less than ever, Kurusu’s response echoed his thoughts.
“International data charges, huh? You owe me big time. Like, BIG big time… I’m talking date-levels of recompensation.”
His phone started ringing as soon as he’d finished reading, and he nearly dropped it in surprise. This wasn't what he’d wanted. He wasn’t in the state to be taking a phone call right now, least of all with the one person he needed to perform for more than anyone else.
“This is Akechi.”
But he couldn’t hesitate, either. Letting it go to voicemail would require a half-baked excuse he was equally unprepared to give.
“I just realized how late it is there. We all just got up,” Kurusu said, his voice sounding light and a little underused from sleep.
Then, added as a courtesy: “I didn’t wake you up, did I?”
Akechi scrambled to sound laid-back, but he knew it was something of a lost cause.
“You didn’t, actually. I had a TV appearance for an evening special and by the time I got home, I was wide awake. I decided to do some studying to wind down.”
“And you’re still going at 4 a.m.?” Akechi could hear the smile in his tone, and his heart beat just a little faster. “Even celebrities deserve a break, you know. You’re a genius. You could probably slack on studying for college entrance exams and still ace everything.”
Akechi sat up, his lower back straining.
“That’s an awful lot of faith you have in me. I’ll do my best not to disappoint. I’ve been told by a good number of people that I’m a role model for their kids, so expectations are high in general.”
Kurusu laughed quietly, in a way that was meant for his ears alone. It was almost too much to handle.
“You totally missed my point. Anyway, you kind of hung up in a rush the other day. You really don’t need to worry about me. I don’t mind talking about stuff like this. And for you, it’s what again, 4 a.m.? What better time for deep talks?”
“I suppose so…” Akechi said, trailing off.
Kurusu had called to talk about the message he’d sent, and Akechi was suddenly regretting having sent it more than ever. He didn’t know how to navigate this. Texts were impersonal, and they gave him space to think before he replied; calls were instantaneous and left little to no margin for error.
“I just… I don’t know,” he said, sounding entirely ineloquent, “My interactions with people are usually pretty limited… very ‘A to B’, if that makes sense. I approach people with a topic in mind, get the answers I’m looking for, then we both move on. The same can be said for my TV appearances, and even my work dealings.”
He didn’t know what possessed him to say it, but he did anyway:
“I feel a bit mechanical, like a robot. Like I’ve never really talked with anyone in my life before. And I don’t even really know how to. But when I see you, things just… spill out.”
“They ‘spill out’?” Kurusu teased, not missing a beat.
Akechi’s skin burned with embarrassment, his stomach sinking with the weight of treachery. He thought about his plan. He thought about Shido. He thought about why he felt like he was betraying a man he was hell-bent on destroying in the end. He wondered which man that applied to more, given his current circumstances.
“See? It’s odd,” he countered, a little more venomous than intended.
“It’s not,” Kurusu corrected him gently. “Sometimes people just find it easier to talk to strangers. That’s pretty normal. Why do you think therapy’s a thing?”
“I…” Akechi started, biting down the impulse to lash out at the word “therapy”, “... Maybe you’re right.”
“Every once in a while,” he said easily.
Akechi tried to rein in his thoughts, but a part of him wanted to drop all pretense, if only for a moment.
“Have you—” he started, aborting suddenly only to remember that it would seem even more disconcerting if he didn’t finish the thought, “Have you ever felt yourself falling apart at a really critical time in your life? Like… you needed to be something, and usually you’re good at being that thing, but circumstances change and suddenly it’s getting increasingly difficult to perform that role?”
There was a moment of silence.
“... Should I make assumptions, since we just talked about how easy you find it to talk to me?”
God, he was sharp—obnoxiously so.
“It’s not about you,” Akechi denied. A half-lie. “It’s about my work, if anything.”
“If that’s the case, you don’t have to be so vague. It must be hard, being in the limelight,” Kurusu said.
Akechi didn’t hear pity for once, and it was a surprising breath of fresh air.
“I don’t mean to patronize you, but it’s really only something you can understand once you’re in it. It sounds like a non-issue to most people, but it takes a toll on those who are mentally unprepared.”
Another beat of silence followed, but this one felt more pointed.
“... I might know something about it. Being in the limelight, I mean.”
Did he know that Akechi knew? Was this a confession?
“I was sent here for being expelled, after all,” he added, his tone making it sound like a planned amendment, “It was quite the scandal back home. Even here.”
Right. Sure it was.
“But anyway,” he continued, “I’ve been in a situation like that before, yeah. There was a time that I had a lot of friends looking up to me and hoping I’d lead them down the path to victory… proverbially-speaking.”
Figuratively-speaking, Akechi silently corrected him.
“In ways, it felt like I had to fake it, you know? Fake what I was doing, or how well I was holding up. It’s not easy.”
The word “fake” hit close to home for a number of reasons.
“Did you ever come up with a solution?” Akechi asked, “Is there one, or do you just have to hope the situation eventually resolves itself?”
“To be honest? One of my friends confronted me and I just talked to them about it. Kind of the same as you when you showed up the other night.”
That wasn’t the answer Akechi had wanted to hear, but he knew he was right. Envy corroded his insides like battery acid.
“Sometimes that’s all it takes. Just someone to listen.”
“I think maybe you’re that ‘someone’ for me.”
… Had he really just said that out loud?
Awkwardness hung between them like a thick curtain, or so Akechi imagined. Kurusu, however, was quick to recover.
“Good. I’m glad we can help each other. It’s like a domino effect,” he said, “One of my friends helps me with my baggage, I help you with yours. It’s almost like a deal when I put it that way, isn’t it? Then there are no messy feelings involved.”
Akechi didn’t know how to respond to that. His mind had practically shut down after the unintentional romanticism of his last reply.
“Emotions aren’t always bad,” he ended up saying with no conviction, doing nothing to convince himself, let alone anyone else listening, “They’re necessary.”
“Yeah,” Kurusu said, his voice taking on a lower note than usual, “You’re right, Goro.”
No honorifics. He might’ve been offended if he wasn’t so focused on preventing his heart from pounding its way out of his chest.
Akechi imagined the flecks of silver in Kurusu’s eyes and the way his seemingly-unkempt hair framed his narrow face. The image in his mind, created by distance, seemed even more annoyingly charming than the sight of Kurusu face-to-face.
Maybe that’s all there was to it. Maybe he was just fascinated by the idea of Kurusu rather than the actual person.
—No, that was doubtful. But the alternative made his already-thankless job even more difficult to bear.
“Hey, Kurusu-kun… I’m having a hard time sleeping lately. If you’re not busy, could you tell me about Hawaii?”
“Hawaii?” he repeated, sounding unsure, “All of the bedtime stories in the world and the ace detective, Goro Akechi, wants to hear about my boring school trip.”
If Akechi was on his 'A' game, he could’ve thought of a million clever retorts, but it was far too late – and far too strange, now that he’d put another piece of himself on the table – for that.
“Yeah,” he said, squeezing the phone, “If that’s okay.”
He heard Kurusu shift in the background, and suddenly, his voice was much louder than it had been before. Akechi jumped, accidentally dialing a number.
“... You good?”
“I-I’m fine, sorry,” he stammered, his brain working quickly, “I stepped on something and it surprised me.”
His nerves were on fire.
“Careful now,” Kurusu chastised playfully, “But anyway, the jet lag really hit us hard. Me and Ryuji were especially—”
Specific wording faded into the background, his voice melding with the white noise of the TV. Goro listened without really “listening” for a while, imagining Kurusu in the room with him. Imagining a world where he was actually up late studying and not planning strategies for tearing through palaces on Shido’s whim. Imagining a world in which he and Kurusu worked together, their mutual anger at society fully realized.
At some point, those fantasies became dreams, and Kurusu’s voice became little more than a lullaby.
———
Some time later, Akira hung up the phone. It’d been difficult not to stay on the line, listening to Akechi’s steady breathing, but he was finding it harder and harder to come up with excuses to tell the others.
“You’re up early,” Ann said, taken aback when she saw him staring absentmindedly at his phone, “Honestly, you struck me as the kind of guy to sleep in ‘til way late, like Ryuji.”
Akira smirked.
“I just got an important call from home, that’s all.”
Ann smiled, a knowing glint in her eye.
“‘Important’, huh?” she repeated, resting a hand on her hip. “You know, Futaba’s got that bug on your phone. She hasn’t told me any specifics, but she might have let slip that a certain someone’s been spending a lot of time on the phone with a pretty popular detective.”
Of course she had. It was no secret that his pseudo-foster sister had a penchant for gossip, especially when it came to personal matters between the other members.
“Don’t tell Ryuji,” Akira said, propping his chin on his arm, “Please? He’ll kill me.”
“My lips are sealed,” she said, “But hey, ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer’, you know? I don’t care how charming he is.”
“It’s not like that,” Akira said, barely masking the poor lie, “But I hear you about keeping my eye on him. He’s a little weird sometimes and I do think the fact that he heard Morgana that day is, well… obviously suspicious. But I don’t think he’s a bad person. He seems unusually attached to me, and we keep bumping into each other.”
“Hey, whatever it is, I’ve got your back. That’s all I’m gonna say.”
Ann shrugged and grabbed a few things from her luggage before disappearing into the bathroom, and Akira couldn’t shake the feeling that she was going to be his greatest ally going forward—especially in an attic full of Phantom Thieves that cursed Akechi’s existence as easily as they breathed.